


Boarding School

by sufferingtime



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe, And I'm not even sorry, Boarding School, M/M, OT3, cliches for days
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 12:18:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6423640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sufferingtime/pseuds/sufferingtime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas is the new kid at school.  He finds his place in the dorm he's assigned, Glade Hall, and finds himself right in the middle of a peculiar tension between his new friend, Newt, and his roommate, Minho.  Adding to this, he has plenty on his hands what with navigating the complicated campus, known to residents as the Maze, passing his classes, patching up his longtime friendship with Teresa, and trying to dispel the persistent and <i>completely</i> inaccurate rumors circulating that him and a certain two students share on-again, off-again romances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Orientation, or How Many Canon References Can I Possibly Slip In Here

Thomas left Teresa right after he got out of the car. He was terrible at goodbyes. He’d thanked her for the ride, gotten his stuff out of the trunk, and walked away, trying his best to act normal. He knew Teresa wouldn’t care.

The school was overwhelming enough to take his mind off of his friend — who was, by now, walking towards her own boarding school only a few blocks from his. The towering stone walls were both imposing and businesslike, and certainly didn’t seem like a comfortable place to live.

Check-in was in full swing when he entered. Dozens of boys, from stringy freshmen to beefy seniors, swarmed at the front desk. Luggage packed every surface that was not taken up by a person. For a moment, Thomas stood still, just taking it in.

“Heads up!” A voice came from behind a massive black suitcase that appeared to be supporting itself through the crowd. Thomas ducked out of the way, but another bystander was not so lucky.

“Watch it!” The skinny blonde boy yelped as one of the corners of the luggage connected with his skull. “God, Alby, you’re gonna kill somebody.”

The suitcase shifted to reveal an athletically built upperclassman. “Nice to see you, too, Newt.”

Just then, the blonde boy spotted Thomas, standing stranded a few feet from them. “What are you looking at?” he asked, with more curiosity than malice.

“Nothing — sorry.” He turned his face away, but the boy named Newt pursued him.

“You’re not a freshman,” he deduced, looking Thomas up and down. “But you’re new, aren’t you? Moved?”

Thomas jerked his head noncommittally. The story of his arrival at the school was not an enjoyable one, and hardly something to tell a stranger. “Yeah.”

“What dorm are you in?”

Thomas fished for his information packet. “Uh — Glade Hall. Third floor.”

“Oooh, we got us a Glader!” Newt cracked a grin. “Hear that, Alby? You’ve got somebody new to terrorize.”

The older boy didn’t smile. “Right, well, I’ve got to get this to the Hall, so if it’s all right with you…” He gestured past Newt.

“‘Course.” The boy moved out of the way. He continued to chatter to Thomas as Alby edged past them. “Glade Hall’s the best, you’ll see. We got our system all worked out.”

Thomas wanted to know more about the system — specifically, where he would fit in — but before he could ask, Newt’s attention was attracted by someone across the lobby. “Oh, good, Minho’s here.” Newt clapped Thomas on the shoulder. “Get your stuff to the Hall, I’ll show you around later.” He vanished quickly, his small stature making him hard to trace in a crowd, a pronounced limp the only thing distinguishing him from the swarm of students. Bewildered, but strangely comforted by the casual welcome, Thomas got in line for check in.

It took him half an hour to finish paperwork and make his way back out of the main building. Being outside didn’t help his overall sense of lostness. All around him sprawled identical cement halls, nothing to differentiate between them but weather-worn signs tacked into the ground by each door.

He fumbled with his map of the campus, locating Glade Hall on it. Just his luck; his new home was all the way on the fringes of the campus. He lugged his bags over sidewalk and dried grass, making way for students on bikes, on skateboards, on foot, all of them shouting to each other and laughing in bursts that filled the afternoon air.

His hall looked the same as any of the others. A bent sign read Glade Hall; someone had taken a sharpie to it and written _WICKED_. He supposed this was a sort of resume for the hall. He didn’t get farther than a few steps inside the door before being swept into a whirlwind of action.

“The Not-Freshman!” Newt greeted him in delight. “Glad you found us.”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed awkwardly. “Uh, me too. And, um, it’s Thomas.”

Newt didn’t hear. He seemed infected by the back to school excitement. Grabbing Thomas’s arm, he dragged him forward, into the common room. “Everybody!” Newt shouted, stopping in the doorway. “Meet the Not-Freshman!”

There were about a dozen other boys in the common room. All of them glanced up; a few called greetings. One of them, a severe-looking boy with short hair, scowled at the interruption.

“Not-Freshman, meet everybody,” Newt continued. “You’ve already met Alby.” He pointed to where the dark skinned senior was sitting by the fireplace. “He’s our group leader, of sorts. Don’t tell him I said that — gets to his head. Over there, with the stick up his ass? That’s Gally.” The short-haired boy glared at him a second time. “Ben’s there.” A boy who looked like a bigger version of Newt lifted his hand. Beside him, a chubby-cheeked boy who looked younger than everyone else in the room waved enthusiastically. “Oh, and there’s Chuck. And, of course, Minho.” Newt shouted to a boy sitting to the right of Chuck. “Get over here, man.”

The broad-shouldered, thick-haired Asian boy approached them warily. “Don’t scare the kid off,” he warned Newt.

“The Not-Freshman? Nah, he’s made of sterner stuff than that.”

“It’s Thomas,” he tried again.

Minho nodded at him. “Hey.”

“At least _smile_ ,” Newt said, exasperated. “You look like you spend your summers at boot camp.”

Minho shrugged. “Maybe I do.”

“I know you don’t, stupid, I’m at your house half the summer.” Newt glanced at Thomas. “Minho and I are gonna get married someday, he just doesn’t know it yet.”

Minho snorted. “Over my dead body.”

“You know you love me.”

They were clearly kidding around, and yet something about the way Newt's response had a bite to it made Thomas ask. “Are you guys…?”

Newt laughed. “Over his dead body.” He spun around, intent on continuing the tour. Thomas picked up his bags and followed, wondering why that simple response had sounded so complex.

Minho tagged along as they ascended the stairs. By the top of the third staircase, Thomas was panting, and his arms felt like he had been carrying deadweights. Newt was wheezing, and he winced as he put weight on his bad leg. 

Minho barely broke a sweat. “Runningback,” he explained to Thomas.

“Showoff,” Newt muttered. He rolled his eyes. “So, kid, what’s your room number?”

He consulted his key. “Um, 224.”

“Hey!” Newt punched his arm. “You’re in with Minho!”

This didn’t entirely please Thomas; so far, Minho seemed like the brooding, silent type — not especially good roommate quality. At least he’d already met him, he supposed.

There was already a bag on one of the beds when they entered, so Thomas took the other. Aside from these, the only other furniture was two desks, two small bureaus, and a closet.

“You good with that side of the room?” Minho asked.

“Yeah.” His bed would be closer to the window, and given how frigid the air already was in early September, he figured that it would not be an ideal spot to try to sleep in the coming winter months, but he didn’t want to argue. Newt and Minho passed the new few minutes talking about people and places that Thomas wasn't familiar with and didn't feel the need to ask about. Newt did most of the talking; his voice filled the background as Thomas unpacked. Minho chimed in with the occasional dry remark or neutral sound of interest.

Outside, the sun was starting to set, reddening the cloudy sky. The square of light from the window traveled across the floor and onto the legs of the three boys. Even as Thomas moved his things into drawers, hung his shirts, tossed his shoes on the bottom of the closet, and hastily made up his bed, the room didn’t seem to want to take on the feeling of a home. He hoped that would change soon.


	2. Hazing, or The Story Of How Thomas Really Wanted To Find Balls

“Did you tell him about the Initiation?” Minho asked Newt, nodding at Thomas and finally bringing him back into the conversation.

“Oh, come on, you weren’t supposed to spoil the surprise,” Newt complained.

Thomas glanced between them. “Initiation?”

Minho shrugged. “I guess it’s a secret.”

“Well, now you have to tell me.” Thomas turned pleading eyes on Newt.

He shook his head. “Find out after the welcome dinner. Come on, we’ll be late.”

Thomas trailed after them, down the three flights of stairs. Newt was only slightly put off by Minho’s reveal of their secret, and by the time they reached fresh air, he was in high spirits again.

“Got a map, Not-Freshman?” he asked.

Thomas remembered, pulled it out of his pocket. “Don’t you know the campus, if you went here last year?”

Newt nodded. “Like the back of my hand.” He snatched the map and handed it to Minho. “Do the honors.” Before Thomas could stop him, Minho smirked, hauled back, and hurled the folded map an astonishing distance. The three of them watched as it flew all the way out to the road, where it landed in the mud of a ditch. “Nice,” Newt observed. “Definitely past where you got Chuck’s.”

“Chuck’s only went to the sidewalk,” Minho told Thomas.

“Uh… so… why was that necessary?” The launching of the map had drawn scattered laughter and even clapping from the students in the vicinity. Thomas couldn’t help but feel he was being inducted into some kind of cult without his knowledge — or consent.

Newt laughed. “You’ll see tonight. Minho, the tie.”

Thomas wasn’t a naturally submissive person; the only reason he’d put up with the succession of odd hazing rituals was because he needed a foothold in this new place, and if friends were what he started with, so be it. But when the two boys started to tie one of the dress code ties around his eyes, he decided it was time to try to put on the brakes. “Guys, whoa, what are you doing?” His hands sprang up to push away the cloth.

“You’ll see,” Newt repeated stubbornly. “Don’t worry, we won’t run you into anything.”

“I’d rather see where I’m going, thanks.” But his efforts to take off the tie were starting to be halfhearted. The pair seemed confident in what they were doing, and they were in broad daylight, on a school campus. Odds were it was only a game, but he felt ridiculous nonetheless as he was led across the grounds, totally blind. It didn’t help that Newt would sometimes shout, as a joke, “Look out for that car!” or “Incoming!”, so that by the time they reached their destination, Minho had to hold Thomas’s hands behind his back to combat his knee-jerk instinct to rip off the blindfold.

Once they finally freed him, they were outside the doors of the school’s cafeteria. The only way Thomas could tell this was from the posted sign, because the building looked exactly like any of the others, and the campus surrounding them was identical to all he’d seen so far. He’d never be able to get around without a map. He was regretting letting Newt and Minho take charge more every minute.

The dinner itself was a thunderous affair, the building ringing with a thousand voices, people bumping into each other, friends shrieking in greeting after a summer apart, harried kitchen workers with steam-reddened faces, chairs being scraped across the floor. Thomas did his best to follow Minho’s dark hair as he and Newt table-hopped. In between enthusiastic, if overly loud, conversations, Newt grabbed food from Minho’s plate and shouted tidbits of information to Thomas. Most of it went in one ear and out the other, if it managed to rise above the noise level at all.

After all the commotion, it was a relief to deposit their plates on the dishwasher’s rack and walk out to where it was quiet. As they pushed through the doors, Thomas was surprised to find that the sun had set as they ate, leaving the grounds darker and more indistinguishable than ever.

Their group had grown to include Ben, Chuck, Alby, Gally, and a few other boys Thomas hadn’t been introduced to. They spread out over the sidewalk, carried away by their own excitement — at least until Newt remembered their newbie. “Guys, we gotta blindfold Thomas!” he cried.

“You remembered my name,” Thomas said, pleased, and for the moment not registering what Newt said. But the satisfaction was fleeting; in a second he found the tie back over his eyes. “No — come on, does anyone want to explain what’s going on?”

“You can’t know your way around the campus yet,” a familiar voice — Chuck’s — said.

“Actually, I kind of do need to know that,” he told thin air.

“Not till the end of tonight,” Ben said. “Tonight’s the Initiation.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “Don’t we have a curfew?”

“Not on the first night. Nobody wants to try to enforce rules until school officially starts.”

They started to lead him back across campus. The footsteps and voices shifted around him in a kaleidoscope of sound, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t track whose hand was tugging his elbow, and who was telling him to go faster, who was laughing when he tripped.

They took off the blindfold back at Glade Hall. The atmosphere of excitement was heightening around them, and Thomas couldn’t help getting a little giddy as he followed the others into the commons.

“Okay,” Newt shouted, waving down the other boys. “Give me a minute, here. Let’s explain to the newbies what’s up.” He squinted through the crowd. “Alby? You wanna give your spiel?”

The oldest boy moved to the front of the room and faced them. “Anybody gets hurt, I kill you. Anybody gets killed, I kill you.” He exited to the affectionate applause that said the crowd had heard that speech before.

Newt took over their attention. “Okay, where are our newbies? Thomas, get over here.”

Caught up in the moment, Thomas let himself be dragged to the front, grinning and shaking his head. Three other boys he didn’t recognize were pushed to the front as well, flush with the warmth of the spotlight.

“Welcome to Glade Hall!” Newt yelled, more to the crowd than to the newcomers. The responding roar shook dust from the ceiling. Newt had to wait several seconds for it to quiet before he could continue. “Initiation here is going to help you with a few things. One, you’ll get to know people. Two, you’ll get to know the campus. And three, you get to do all of it in the dark!”

“I hope this isn’t going to be as sexual as you’re making it sound,” Thomas said dubiously.

Even Alby and Minho grinned. Newt punched his arm. “God, get on board with it getting a little gay, Not-Freshman. It’ll be a long year if you don’t.”

“Good to hear,” he answered weakly.

“Okay, okay.” Newt waved for silence. “Rules. One, no going off campus. Two, no open wounds.” Alby raised his eyebrows. Newt revised his statement. “Fine. No wounds, period. Three, nobody can say more than one word to a newbie every five minutes. One word per person, then you have to wait five minutes to say anything else — to any of them. Clear?” He waited for nods. “Lastly, only one person can be within ten feet of a newbie at any time.” He thought to himself for a moment, nodded. “Okay, so now — how to play. Where’s the ball at?”

“Oh, good, balls are involved,” one of the boys commented, to scattered laughter. The next second, Thomas had to duck as the ball in question was thrown to Newt, who caught it and held it up. It was the size of a softball, made of rubber, and, when he squeezed it, lit up and flashed.

“This is what you need to win the game,” Newt announced. “Half the people in this room are on Team One. That team is trying to lead our newbies away from the ball. The other half, Team Two, is trying to lead them to it. If any of them find it, it’s game over, Team Two wins. If the security guards finally get fed up with us and yell at us to get back inside, and the ball hasn’t been found, Team One wins.”

“Can we have team names?” Chuck asked.

“No.” Newt shook his head. “Not after last year.”

Thomas was tempted to ask what happened last year, but someone answered the question before he had to say anything. “C’mon, Newt, Team Gigantic Dongs was a _great_ name,” Ben whined.

“Yeah, we’re just lucky the deans thought we were saying ‘dogs’,” Alby muttered.

Newt turned to the four initiates. “Questions?”

Thomas tried to take it all in. He’d be running around a strange campus, in the dark, with almost forty people trying to lead him towards something, and forty others trying to lead him away from it. From the looks on the other three boys’ faces, he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t all for this idea just yet. The movement of the crowd had pushed Chuck to Thomas’s side. The squat boy laughed at the look on Thomas’s face. “Don’t worry, they put me through the Maze last year. It’s not bad.”

“The Maze?”

Chuck waved his hand. “The campus. The Maze. Impossible to navigate, impossible to escape. Seemed like a good name for the place.” That certainly didn’t lessen the misgivings Thomas had. He turned back to Newt to find that the blonde haired boy was engaged in an argument again.

“My leg’s acting up,” he complained. “I gotta sit this one out.”

There was an outcry from the crowd; apparently Newt was a well-loved figure.

“You have to play!” Chuck protested.

Newt shook his head. “Nah, I’m not playing, all right?”

Alby stared him down. “You and I need to keep these preschoolers in line, remember? Don’t leave me on my own.”

Newt tried to protest, but Minho came forward from where he’d been skulking at the back of the crowd. “C’mon, stupid, we can get out there early so you can get a head start.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’ll be able to keep up with you, for sure,” he answered sarcastically.

But with Alby’s no-nonsense reasoning, Minho’s bullying, and Chuck’s breathless enthusiasm, Newt finally gave in and agreed to play. The crowd surged outside, the four newbies at the back. The ball was thrown from hand to hand, bobbing over heads. Team captains were picked, and the newbies were told to wait, out of earshot, while the teams were sorted.

“We don’t get to know who’s on which team?” one of the boys asked incredulously.

“I guess that’s the point,” Thomas said. They stood in the cool evening air. Two of the boys talked in mutters to each other, but for the most part, the four of them listened to the shouts happening on the lawn in silence.

After a few minutes, Minho reappeared to give them the last of their instructions. “First newbie to get the ball gets to cut in line for meals next week, so don’t think it’s in your best interests to work together. Everyone’s scattering through the campus right now. Got your phones?”

The four of them nodded.

“Okay, if you’re dying or lost, those will come in handy. Otherwise, you use, you lose.” He glanced over his shoulder. “They should have the ball hidden by now. Wait here for ten seconds. After that, you’re on your own.”

He jogged off. The boys looked at each other and then spread out without waiting the ten seconds.

Thomas ran in the same direction as Minho, assuming he would be going towards where the others were. He was wrong; within seconds, he was completely alone in the dark. Despite almost ninety boys roaming the campus, he couldn’t find a single one of them for what felt like eternity. He chose to stick to the sidewalks, figuring he could trace his way back to Glade Hall if he needed to. He passed countless dorms, and he thought he recognized the main building in the distance. But there were no people to be found.

Finally, a silhouette appeared from behind a tree. It was a tall boy, light on his feet, who approached him quickly.

“Hey,” Thomas said, relieved.

In response, the boy pointed. “Sidewalk.”

After a moment of confusion, Thomas remembered that the team members could only say one word at a time to him. He nodded. “Uh, thanks.” The boy retreated, vanishing into the shadows as quickly as he’d come.

The brief interaction provided him with no more direction than he’d started with. Did he mean that Thomas would find the ball if he continued on the sidewalk, or was he trying to mislead him? Which team was he on?

Steeped in frustration, Thomas decided to keep on the sidewalk. If he followed every direction given to him, surely some of them would be right, and he’d be headed in the generally correct direction.

The next person to interact with him sprinted past without stopping and merely hurled the word at him. “Trees!” he yelled. In an instant, he had vanished into the darkness again.

“Good,” Thomas muttered to himself. “Trees. Right.” He scanned the area around him. There were undernourished saplings dotting the grassy areas, but none of them looked special. Rolling his eyes, he tried to pick where they were thickest and moved toward them, leaving the sidewalk behind.

It only took a couple seconds before he heard voices. He turned towards them instinctively.

“...I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t — look, don’t take it like that.”

Thomas froze, wondering if he should leave, or if this was part of the game. No, he decided; whatever it was, it was clearly not directed at him.

“It’s not your fault,” the first voice insisted. “It was my bad. I shouldn’t have thought… I mean, I just… Sometimes, Minho, you act like it — like we — ”

As Thomas stood there, it hit him who the voices were — Newt and Minho. If he squinted, he could make out the two of them, standing near a tree, mostly obscured by shadow.

Minho sounded defensive. “Look, I don’t want to tell you the wrong thing.”

“So don’t tell me anything.” Newt’s voice carried almost palpable discomfort. “Let’s forget it happened.”

Minho didn’t respond. Getting paranoid, Thomas edged a little further back. As their voices faded out of earshot, he came to his senses; he shouldn’t be eavesdropping. Forget the trees, he told himself, jogging back to the sidewalk. But he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what had passed between his classmates.

It didn’t take long for the matter to get pushed to the back of his mind. In the following five minutes, four people located him, and in rapid succession, gave him the hints “registration”, “parking”, “sidewalk”, and “flagpole”. Overwhelmed, and unable to follow every instruction, Thomas figured it was safest to continue down the path, since he’d received the “sidewalk” clue twice now. Starting to wonder how late it was, he picked up the pace, first speed-walking, and then half running between buildings and past benches.

Occasionally he’d see a group of figures huddled together, but none of them acknowledged him, and all of them fell silent when they recognized him approaching. At some point, he passed one of the other three initiates; they nodded to each other, but didn’t speak.

As time passed, the game picked up pace. Students began to sprint past him regularly, some of them shouting clues to him, some apparently in too much of a hurry to speak to him. Thomas had no idea what was going on; for all he knew, someone might have found the ball already. He made turns at random, keeping to the sidewalks.

“Sign,” someone advised him excitedly, their eyes gleaming in the dark. They passed, but a moment later, as Thomas was still turning that hint over in his mind, a second person arrived and shouted the same word — “Sign!” — before trotting out of sight.

It was the first definite piece of information Thomas had to go on, even if he didn’t really understand it. He turned on his heel, thinking. Did they mean the sign out front, the one for the school? Or the signs in front of the hall? Or maybe they meant a stop sign on one of the roads?

He had to pick one, and out of all of those, the main school sign seemed like the only unique landmark. 

Having decided on his destination, he just had to figure out the path to it. It turned out to be far simpler than he’d thought it would be. After a few minutes of searching, the parking lot appeared like it had been waiting for him to find it. At the entrance to the lot stood the painted cement sign, Northern Boy’s Academy written in block letters on the front, and a small, glowing object at its base.

His pulse jumped. Glancing around him, he started to speed up.

There was still fifty feet between him and the sign when another figure burst into view, racing him towards the ball.

Thomas had never been especially athletic, but adrenalin lent him speed. He pushed himself forward. At first, nothing but his ragged breathing and footsteps could be heard in the night air. But then, behind him, he heard a shout, and then three or four voices calling his name and another’s — his competitor’s.

He was gaining ground, but so was the other newbie. His feet hit a crack in the pavement and nearly unbalanced him, but he straightened up and kept going, eyes trained on the glow. He arrived at the exact same moment as the other newbie, and they threw themselves at the ball simultaneously. Behind them, more and more students were gathering, shouting them on. Their hands hit the ball together, and neither of them got a good grip. It shot out from between them and rolled, favoring Thomas slightly. He lunged for it, feeling the other boy scramble as well, and came up hugging the rubber ball to his chest.

“Thomas has it!” Chuck shouted, running towards him. “Thomas got it!”

He stood, brushing dead grass from his pants, and offered a hand to the other boy. They were both laughing and trying to spit dirt out of their mouths, neither harboring any hard feelings.

They’d barely regained their feet when they were swept up in a crowd of shouting boys. Thomas was pounded on the back and punched on the arm until he was sure he’d have bruises, but he kept his grip on the ball. They wound their way back towards Glade Hall. Somehow, Chuck’s sweaty face always seemed to be bobbing at his elbow.

The other newbies ruefully endured good-natured bullying. The spotlight jumped from Thomas, to them, to the team captains, to everyone who’d taken an individual part on the game.

“Ben moved it to the sign,” someone told him. “It started out in the tree, and then it got taken to the Desert Dorms — ”

“No, didn’t it go to registration?” someone asked.

“I just told you that to mess you up,” Gally said sourly. “Didn’t work.”

For the amount of energy the crowd seemed to have, it took a mere half an hour for them to disperse. Everyone was gradually coming to the same realization: there was class tomorrow morning. Newt and Minho were nowhere to be seen. What he’d overhead between them rose again in Thomas’s mind, but it wasn’t until he’d been congratulated by, and traded jokes with, almost every boy in Glade Hall that he was able to go seek one of them out.

“Hey,” Minho said, glancing up as he entered their room.

“Hey.” Thomas held up the ball. “Guess having a map doesn’t matter so much.”

“Well, hell, I guess not,” he said, sitting up and grinning. “Congrats.”

“You didn’t see it?” Thomas felt a spark of disappointment.

He shrugged, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Newt’s leg was killing him, so he went inside, and I figured it would be lame without him. But I stand corrected.”

“Ha. Yeah.” Thomas could feel the elation filtering out of him slowly. He rolled the ball between his hands, trying to decide how to ask what had happened without seeming like he’d been stalking them. To stall for time, he asked, “What’s the deal with his leg, anyways?”

Minho reacted more awkwardly to the question than Thomas expected. “Not my place to say, really.”

His interest piqued, Thomas set the ball aside. “That bad?”

Minho met his gaze. “Yeah. Ask him about it, if you have to. S’not my story to tell.”

If it was that touchy of a subject, Thomas knew he’d probably never find a good way to ask. He gave up on the question, for the time being. “Well, I saw you guys out there for the first half of the game.”

“Did you?” Minho’s tone shifted to wariness. “Can’t say we saw you.”

He made a split second decision to put his money on honesty. “Yeah, I just heard you guys talking for a second. Didn’t make much sense.”

His roommate snorted. “Tell me about it.”

Trying to make the conversation seem throwaway, Thomas got up and started to dig through his bag for his toothbrush. “What do you mean?”

There was a pause. Thomas knew Minho was trying to decide how much he wanted to tell this newcomer. Finally, he said, “Newt and I have a weird friendship. He’s not good with boundaries.”

Thomas laughed. “You’re telling me you guys aren’t dating? Because I’m getting mixed signals.”

“Apparently, so is he.” Minho sounded irritated, more talking to himself than anything, but he checked himself. “It’s not a big deal.”

None of your business. Thomas could take a hint. He found his toothbrush and left for the bathroom.

It had been a long day, but a good one. By the time Thomas slid into bed, he realized that, for the entire afternoon, he hadn’t felt the pangs of loneliness that had been the defining characteristic of his summer.


	3. The Meeting, or Thomas Kicks Off Gay Rumors And Kind Of Regrets It

He meant to at least _try_ to keep to the rules, but by two days into the school year, Thomas knew he couldn’t wait for the weekend to see a familiar face. He texted Teresa halfway through math class. _Quadratics are going to kill me if I don’t get away from them. Can we do it tonight?_

Always the good student, Teresa didn’t text back until after classes let out. _Thought we were gonna save sneaking out for emergencies._

He dropped his backpack on the floor of his room and sat down on his bed before answering. _I think death by math is an emergency._

It took some persuading, but by dinner, he’d convinced her to go through with it. Technically, students weren’t allowed off campus until the weekend, but both of them had agreed that they’d break curfew and rendezvous somewhere if the other needed company during the weeks. They decided they’d meet at the halfway point between their schools, a bookstore that stayed open late for poetry nights. It would take twenty minutes for him to get there, so if they were going to meet at midnight, he had until about half past eleven to figure out how he was going to get off campus in the first place. 

It boiled down to needing someone to help him, to tell him where the security guards would be, and to direct him on the best path to take to get to the main road. He got the feeling that Newt wouldn’t mind helping him break the rules, but he couldn’t ask during dinner, because Alby sat at their table. The stony-faced boy seemed like the kind who would turn one of his own in before he let him sneak out at night. 

By the time Alby left, Newt had departed for his room. Thomas’s options had narrowed down to asking Minho or just winging it. 

He considered calling the meeting off altogether, but he missed Teresa more than he wanted to admit. It would be worth it to go to Minho. Even if his roommate didn’t want to help him, he wouldn’t turn him in. At least, Thomas hoped he wouldn’t. 

Curfew was at nine, lights out at ten thirty. As Thomas waited in his room for Minho to walk in the door, his confidence turned to confusion, and finally to nervousness as the time neared nine o’clock, and then passed it. He kept his eyes trained on the door, but it remained closed until almost ten. When he finally slipped through the door, Minho looked like he’d been running. He was breathing hard, his hair and clothes disheveled. 

“Where’ve you been?” Thomas asked, forgetting his own predicament for a moment. 

“What? Oh, I was in Newt’s room. Lost track of time, had to avoid the security guards.” He moved to his side of the room and started sorting through his books. 

Thomas tried not to raise an eyebrow at that explanation. The state of his clothes said Minho had certainly lost track of something, but it wasn’t the time. “So, um, question.” 

“Yeah?” 

There wasn’t a good way to ask it. “Say I wanted to be out past curfew. How would I do that without getting caught?” 

Minho stopped flipping through the pages of his biology textbook and gave Thomas his full attention. “Why?” 

“Wanna visit somebody.” There wasn’t much point in keeping anything from him, so Thomas elaborated. “My friend, Teresa. She goes to the girl’s school.” 

“Oh, your _friend_ Teresa?” Minho grinned a little. “Sneaking out at night to visit your _friend_ Teresa? 

“Shut up, it’s not like that,” Thomas said, throwing his pillow. 

“Sure it’s not.” 

“Jesus, gross — she’s like a sister, all right?” Thomas shook his head. He’d be lying if he said he’d never considered asking Teresa out, but the spark just wasn’t there between them. She was too intimidating. “I want to see a friend. End of story.” 

“Right, okay.” Minho thought for a second. “You going to the bookstore?” 

He was taken aback. “Yeah, how’d you know?” 

“Whenever anyone sneaks out to see someone from the girl’s school, they go to the bookstore. The owner’s chill, he doesn’t care if there’s always a couple making out in the biographies.” 

“You been there?” Thomas asked. 

Minho half-smiled. “It’s a rite of passage, really. Everybody’s had a thing with someone from the girl’s school.” 

“You included?” 

“Back off,” he warned him, but he allowed himself a fleeting grin. “Okay, well, to get there, you’re going to want to leave soon. Detour around the main parking lot — go all the way to the back, behind the kitchens, and then loop around. Once you’re on the main road, keep off sidewalks for a few streets, the guards know the route. You should be fine when you reach the mall.” 

Thomas nodded, trying to visualize it. “And for getting back?” 

“Don’t get caught, don’t get lost, don’t get hit by a car,” Minho said simply. He rolled only his bed, offering only a few final words. “Hope you get to your girl.” 

_\------_

Getting off campus was easier than Thomas had thought it would be, but his own paranoia made it harder. Everything that moved made him jump. It wasn’t until he was several blocks away from the school that he relaxed and let down his guard. 

It was a small bookstore, the kind that still had a bell over the door. Its jingle alerted a worn out employee of his arrival, and the boy straightened up. “Good evening, can I help you find anything?” he asked. 

“No, thank you,” Thomas said. He knew it had to only be an hour or two until close, and judging by the look of the place, they didn’t get too many customers this close to the end of the day. “Did a girl come in here?” 

A look of knowing came over the teenager’s face. “Yep, in the reading room in the back.” 

He felt strangely compelled to explain to him that they were just homesick friends visiting each other, but instead he bit his tongue and walked through the shelves, scanning the back until he spotted a room labeled _Reading Room_ in childish, blocky cutout letters. He could see beanbags and reading lamps scattered throughout the interior. Teresa was seated cross-legged in an armchair, her school uniform unkempt and careless, her fingers paging through one of the books. Another pair of legs could be seen, stretched out from a beanbag just out of sight. Thomas approached the room, excited to see a familiar face. 

What he wasn't counting on was seeing two familiar faces. He glanced offhand at the second person in the room, and Newt stared back at him, both of them equally startled. Then Newt's eyes slid to Teresa and half of a delighted grin formed on his face. 

Thomas wasn't entirely sure why he did what he did, except that there was something in Newt's face that said he didn't want to prolong this interaction. He turned abruptly and went back the way he came. He only went as far as the front of the store, before stopping and waiting for Teresa, who he assumed would follow him out. But it was several minutes before someone came out of the reading room, and it wasn't her. 

Uncomfortably aware of what Newt had to be thinking at that second, Thomas slipped out the front door and walked quickly a few storefronts down. By the time he heard the faint jingle that indicated someone leaving the bookstore, he was at a safe distance from Newt’s prying eyes. The unintended effect of this avoidance maneuver was that by the time Thomas had waited for Newt to leave and come back to the bookstore, Teresa was nowhere to be found. 

“Stormed out the front,” the employee said in response to Thomas asking him where she’d gone. He shrugged noncommittally, but his interested eyes stayed on Thomas’s back as he left for the second time. He paused to text Teresa — _Where are you?_ — but he couldn’t wait long for her to reply. Skulking on a dark street, in a shopping center walking distance from the school, passed beyond the realm of suspicious into downright foolhardiness. 

The reply to his text wouldn’t come until the next morning, after he’d snuck back onto campus, gotten a few hours of fitful sleep, woken up, and dragged himself to his first period English class. He didn’t need to hear her voice to sense her impatience and offence. _You hauled me all the way out there to ditch me for some guy? What the hell?_

__

__

He was confused about what she meant until he thought it over from her perspective: he’d walked into the room, seen and clearly recognized both of them, turned around, and left; a few seconds later, Newt had followed him out, and they’d both disappeared into the night. It wasn’t hard to imagine what her first reaction would have been. Horrorstruck, he started to text back a rushed explanation, but his teacher was having none of it. “I see you’ve found something better to do than read Faulkner, Thomas,” she observed. He jumped, scattering the papers he was meant to be annotating, and the whole class turned to look at him. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, trying to put his phone in his bag. 

“Leave it on my desk,” the teacher ordered. The school’s policy for being caught texting in class dictated that the student wouldn’t see their phone until the end of the school day; almost no one was cruel enough to uphold that rule, but it was just Thomas’s luck that his English teacher would be one who was. 

Newt tracked him down at lunch. “Lover boy!” he said in greeting, his voice delighted. “Congratulations on keeping that secret. Can’t say I approve of your choice of partner. She glared at me in the strangest way when I left the room.” 

“She thinks we hooked up,” he groaned, rubbing his temples. 

Newt’s grin grew, something Thomas wouldn’t have thought possible. “Is that right? And I assume you instantly beat down the rumors and insisted that you are not, in fact, a certified homosexual?” Thomas shoveled a spoonful of potatoes into his mouth instead of giving him the dignity of a response, and glared straight ahead while Newt doubled over with laughter. “It’s been three days, Tommy, and you’ve already got a rumor going around that we slept together? And you’ve even got your girlfriend fooled? God, this is good.” 

“Firstly, she’s just a friend. Secondly, shut up,” Thomas snapped. “Nobody knows — nobody _thinks_ that but Teresa. And as soon as I get my phone back, I can text her and tell her what actually happened.” 

“What _did_ actually happen?” Newt asked with interest. “Saw my beautiful face and got flustered, did you?” 

Thomas hadn’t spent much time around Newt, but it was quickly becoming clear that tenacity wasn’t just a charming quality he presented to newcomers; the persistence was here to stay. “I just didn’t want Teresa to think I’d brought someone along without telling her,” he said. “She’d be worried you’d go to the deans on us, or you’d think the wrong thing. Which you are. The second one, I mean. I assume you haven’t told on us.” Why did none of it feel exactly like the truth? 

“Oh, I’d never tell on you. I’m a big fan of young love.” 

“Do you need me to carve the word ‘friend’ into your forehead?” He picked up his plastic knife threateningly. “What were you doing in there, anyway?” 

“Can’t a guy visit a bookstore in peace?” 

“Apparently not. At least, not in the middle of the night, off campus.” He raised his eyebrows. 

“Fair point,” Newt conceded. “All right, if you must know; it’s how I get away from things. This school, all the drama, all the people.” He waved around him. “It’s like we’re all trapped here, like animals. I have to prove to myself that if I ever needed out, I could get out.” 

Thomas was surprised by the honesty of his answer. He wanted to ask for more detail, but Newt’s expression suddenly dropped from easygoing to on guard, and his eyes focused on something behind Thomas’s back. He turned to see Minho approaching them. “Hey,” he said, scooting aside to give him room to sit. When he looked up, Newt was rapidly disappearing in the lunch crowd. Minho’s face didn’t betray anything, but he sat down heavily. “What’s going on with you two?” 

“Long story.” He pointed his fork at Thomas. “Speaking of stories, what’s this I heard about you and the bookstore?” 

He had the resist the urge to beat Minho's head in with his lunch tray, an urge that stayed with him for the rest of the day. Everyone seemed to know that something had gone down in the bookstore, but none of them had enough information to piece together the truth. By the time classes let out, Thomas had been asked twice if he'd been running away from the school with his childhood sweetheart, and another time if he was hiding his gay love affair because of his unaccepting family. 

He had to endure a lecture from his English teacher before he got his phone back. As soon as he was out of the classroom, he checked his texts and found a second one from Teresa. _Take your time apologizing, it's fine. I'll just sit here and listen to my classmates talk about me getting ditched in a bookstore._

His stomach twisted at the blatant anger in her words, but a small part of him was indignant that she'd jump to a conclusion and judge him so readily. It wasn't as if he wasn't dealing with his own onslaught of rumors. The irritation made his responding message sound curt. _My teacher took my phone, I just got it back._

He'd just reached his dorm when his phone buzzed. _Sure, that's convenient. I hope you have a really good explanation for last night._

The part of him that was irked at her taking the high road got a little bigger, and only grew as he typed out and then deleted several retaliatory messages. Finally, he slipped his phone into his pocket without answering. If she wanted to be mad at him, then she could suit herself. 


	4. Snow Day, or Strap In For Drama-Ridden Fanfiction Cliche Hell

Winter weather set in almost overnight. Minho and Thomas woke one morning, shivering in the drafty chill of the dorm rooms, to find a layer of snow on the ground outside.

"All right," Minho said excitedly, peering out at it. "Bring on the snow days."

"It's a boarding school," Thoms reminded him, pulling on an extra pair of socks. "It would take six feet to snow out classes."

"You'd be surprised." Minho examined the blue tips of his fingers, and then tried to shake warmth into them. "This school has a knack for attracting weird weather. Last year, there was such a bad ice storm, class was canceled for three days. They only decided to shut it down after two kids fell and broke bones, but you never know, something that bad could happen again."

Minho’s insider knowledge turned out to to be prophetic. The snow intensified over the next few days, forcing the staff to clear the pathways several times a day. Thomas didn’t appreciate the extra struggle getting to classes on time, especially since his campus map was still somewhere under the mounting snow. The final straw came when they all woke up at 2 AM to find the heaters off and their breath visible in their dorm rooms.

Thomas woke before Minho did. He wrapped himself tight in his blankets, his sleepy brain not registering how deeply, bone-chillingly cold it was for several seconds. When he finally realized that he couldn’t feel his feet or hands, he sat up on his mattress and tucked them close, his face pinched in confusion. “Minho,” he hissed.

“Hmmf?” The lump that was Minho stirred, stretched, and then instantly snapped back into a tight ball. “What the fuck! Why is it so cold?”

“Dunno. Did you leave the window open?” Thomas got up to check, but only went as far as lowering a tentative foot onto the floor and snatching it back. “Jesus! If I had skates, we could play ice hockey on the floor.”

“Don’t be a baby.” Minho got up and made a dash for the window, hissing swear words each time his foot connected with the frigid floor, and then retreated to Thomas’s bed, which was closest to the window. “Yeah, it’s closed.” He rubbed his hands together and breathed into them. “Scoot over. Where’s your blanket?”

“Get your own,” Thomas protested, trying to pull his from the stronger boy’s grasp and failing. “Give me some, at least.” They fought over the blanket for a few seconds.

“Wait. Shut up.” Minho twisted towards the door.

Thomas followed suit, listening for what Minho had heard. The quiet sounds of dozens of footsteps and muttering voices permeated through their door — apparently more than one room’s heater had gone out. Thomas was about to suggest they go and find out what was happening when their door creaked open. Chuck’s head popped in. “Minho,” he started, looking towards his empty bed. He paused, confused, and then his head swiveled around to see Minho and Thomas curled up in the same blanket. There was an awkward few seconds, and then Chuck continued. “Power’s out. The assistant principal is gathering us in the commons.”

He withdrew, and the other two boys hastened to follow him. They joined the queue of students filing out towards the staircase and found Chuck, Ben, Gally, Alby, and Newt near the back of the commons, all of them craning to see their assistant principal at the front.

“It’s bloody freezing,” Newt greeted them. “I keep checking to make sure I still have feet.”

“Yeah, you guys are smart,” Chuck said to Thomas and Minho, the situation not dampening his ever-cheerful spirits. “We should all huddle for warmth.” Newt’s eyebrows went north of his hairline and he gave Thomas a _you did what?_ glare. Before he could start in on him, the tall, grey-haired man at the front of the room shouted for their attention.

“Well, good morning to you all,” he began. “I’ll make this short, as I’m sure you’re all eager to get back to your beds.”

Thomas could have sworn he heard Newt muttering “some of us more than others” and had to hope it didn’t mean his friend was taking what Chuck had said to heart so readily.

“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, our power’s gone out and the backup generator is experiencing a few problems. Namely, it’s not functioning at all. So plumbing, lights, heating — it’s all going to be down, for at least night night.”

“Are classes canceled?” a boy near the hallway shouted.

The assistant principal half-smiled. “Naturally, that’s what you’d be curious about. For now, classes are to proceed as normal — ”

“Come on,” Gally moaned, as a general outcry rose from the assembly.

He waved them down. “We’ll keep you updated as we make decisions. Everyone will be given extra blankets, heating pads, and sleeping bags. We’d encourage you all to sleep here, in the commons, which is the most central part of the dorm. Plumbing doesn’t work, so don’t bother flushing. We’ll try to have a more permanent situation set up for that by morning.” He waited out the chorus of distress at this news. “Flashlights will also be distributed. No one is allowed to leave the dorms until the all-clear before class. Even if you want to get something out of your cars, you wait. We’re expecting your support and cooperation as much as possible so we can focus our energy on the generators. Any questions?”

They all came forward to take their supplies and began to mete out areas of the floor to claim for the night. Thomas bedded down with the group he’d stood with. Minho appeared briefly, dropped his sleeping bag, and told Thomas he’d grab his pillow and bring it down. Thomas waited for him to get back, testing his flashlight by flicking it on and off. Its beam fell on approaching feet.

“You and Minho getting it on now?” Newt asked abruptly, clearly aiming for jokingly and missing.

“God, I see can’t escape the rumors that I’m fooling around with all the school’s cute boys. Is this what happens when they don’t make schools coed?”

“ _Cute_ boys?” Newt’s lips tugged upwards. “So now I’m competing with Minho for the top spot in your ‘fooling around’?”

“No,” Thomas said bluntly. “Minho’s obviously in first place. Come on, Newt, pull your weight.” Despite himself, he grinned. “But seriously, stop it. We’ve got enough to worry about, and Teresa’s already pissed at me. If this becomes a full-fledged rumor…” Thomas would have gone cold at the thought of Teresa hearing about his alleged two-man relationship, had his body temperature not already been several degrees below par. “Just quit.” They both saw Minho appear at the top of the stairs, and Newt got up to leave. Thomas grabbed his arm. “And make up with Minho. Whatever happened, this is getting old.”

He let go, and Newt retreated to his place on the other side of the group. Minho dropped Thomas’s pillow on his face and then plopped down on the floor beside him. “What was that about?”

He couldn’t face trying to explain to Minho that Chuck was spreading the news that they shared a bed at night. “English homework. You want to tell me why you and Newt won’t look at each other?”

Minho shook his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.” He punched in his pillow and settled back. Thomas laid down too, shivering until the floor beneath him took on his body heat. It would be several hours before that heat was restored to his feet, but he fell asleep after only a few minutes, oddly comforted by the room full of murmuring, whispering voices.

 

——

 

Thomas woke feeling like he was in a heavy, warm cocoon. The sleeping bag had done its job, and the combined warmth of all the students in the room had kept the worst of the cold at bay. When he rolled over, he felt something slide off his side — Minho's hand had been thrown over him during the night. Thomas glanced at his sleeping face and fleetingly wondered if the hand had been deliberately or accidentally placed.

A few other boys were up and had congregated in the hall, where a makeshift kitchen had been set up with supplies that Thomas assumed had been brought early that morning. He checked the time on his rapidly dying phone; they had an hour before class started. With the last of his battery, he texted Teresa to ask how she was doing in the storm; it felt uncomfortable to not address their last conversation, but he didn't feel up to that discussion and hoped she could let it go without a fuss.

He ate his cereal and tried to check the weather forecast, but his phone died on him before he’d seen anything more than the indication that the snow wouldn’t be abating anytime soon. Eating cold cereal alone in the drafty hallway made him miss the comfort of his sleeping bag, and he stood to go rejoin Minho.

Ben came around the corner just as he started walking. “I wouldn’t go out there,” he warned. “I woke up to Newt and Minho yelling at each other, and it sounds like something to keep out of the way of.” Thomas stood still and debated, wondering if it would help or hurt to be near his quarreling friends at the moment. After a second, however, their raised voices started to be audible even in the hallway, and more and more boys were leaving the commons with expressions ranging from irritated to uncomfortable. Thomas made his way past them into the room.

Minho was standing a few feet from the wall, his arms folded, locked in an aggressive shouting match with Newt, who gestured inches from Minho’s face. Their fighting was so familiar and intimate that Thomas felt embarrassed to interrupt.

“Hey, guys, you’re making a scene,” he intervened, pulling Newt away from Minho. “What’s going on?”

“Stay out of this, Tommy,” Newt said through gritted teeth.

“No, I think we need someone who can be reasonable,” Minho said viciously.

Newt stared at him for a long second. “Fine, I can tell when I’m not wanted.” He strode away, grabbing his shoes and pulling them on haphazardly.

“Newt,” Minho said, his voice authoritative. “Don’t walk out on this.”

“Ha — practice what you preach.” Newt shoved the door open and his figure was obscured by snow in seconds.

Thomas ran after him, catching the door as it swung closed. "Newt! Don't be an idiot!"

"Forget it," Minho dismissed. "Where’s he gonna go?”

“He’s headed to the parking lot,” Thomas predicted, watching Newt’s hazy figure take a right. “Minho, he can’t drive in this. Especially not with his bad leg.”

Minho’s expression shifted from angry to worried in seconds. “He’ll turn around. He’s not even wearing a jacket. Besides, he knows we haven’t gotten the all-clear, he’s breaking the rules.”

Boys started to filter back into the commons. “Close the door,” Gally snapped when he saw Thomas standing half in, half out. Thomas stepped back inside and the flow of cold air cut off abruptly.

Chuck came out from the corner where he’d been watching the encounter. “It’s okay, he’ll be fine,” he said unconvincingly. “He’s not stupid.”

“Contrary to appearances.” Minho retreated to his sleeping bag and sat down on it, withdrawing into himself. Thomas came to sit by him, unable to offer advice or comfort, frustrated and worried by the state of affairs between his friends.

The door opened twenty minutes later. Both Thomas and Minho looked up, Minho with expectant fury, Thomas with relief, but their expressions quickly turned to ones of matching disappointment when it wasn't Newt, but the assistant principal who entered, stomping his boots and unwrapping a heavy scarf from his face. The room fell silent instantly. He glanced around at them all and made his announcement without preamble. “Class is canceled.”

A roar of approval swept through the room. Chuck punched Thomas’s arm, but he could only be fleetingly happy, still wondering where Newt was in the storm. Minho remained reserved as well. Everyone else celebrated freely, Gally shouting in exasperated relief, Alby grinning and trying to get everyone to settle down, Ben whooping loudly. The principal waved for their attention. “I trust you all kept to the guidelines and stayed safe last night. I’ll be taking roll now, and in an hour or two, staff will come by to stay permanently with you. Count the school day as a guided study hall.” None of this dampened anyone’s spirits; the adrenalin rush of being in a snowstorm so bad it was keeping them stuck inside their own dorms brought a strange form of excitement. The comradery wouldn’t be lessened by being chauffeured by teachers or the expectation that they’d stay on task and do their homework.

The assistant principal produced a clipboard and started through the list of names. It was just quiet enough for the responding “here” to be heard from each boy, so when Newt’s was absent, it took several tries for the man to be sure he wasn’t just missing the reply. “Has anyone seen Newt?” he called, surveying them. Conversations dropped off one by one as they realized what was going on. “Does anyone know if he’s in a different dorm, perhaps, or on leave at home?”

Thomas glanced at Minho, who was clearly not going to do the necessary task, and stood up himself. “He went outside, sir.” He didn’t want to rat out a fellow student altogether, so he added, “Just to get something from his car. You said that was fine once it was morning.”

The assistant principal’s brows furrowed; apparently he hadn’t thought that the rules he’d set out were that lenient. “When did he leave?”

“A few minutes ago,” Thomas said. “He should be back soon.” It hadn’t really hit him how much he should worry about the situation. Newt was in the snow, with no protective clothing, on a campus so confusing it deserved its nickname. The Maze would turn anyone around on a day with clear skies. Add to that how obviously upset he was, and how little he’d taken with him when he left, and Thomas felt compelled to report the incident in its entirety. “Maybe a little longer.”

The assistant principal had already stopped listening to his words, in a hurry to get out and confer about it with his superiors. He sped through the rest of the roll without issue and bundled up. “I’m reporting the problem to security, and they’ll check in with you in a few minutes. If the missing boy comes back, he’ll need to provide a write-up of the event. Let this be a warning to the rest of you — no one else leaves.” One more rush of icy air, and they were alone again.

Ben dropped between them and slapped Thomas on the back. “You’d think they’d just announced we have weekend school. Cheer up, Newt’s going to be fine.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ve never been assigned to the task of keeping him safe,” Minho muttered. “He makes it hard.”

Security took longer to arrive than the assistant principal had said. The black-clad forms walked in the door with a kind of authority that told people they were in the middle of a crisis. “We’re looking for a student named Newt,” one of them said, his booming voice enough to silence the room. “Is he back here yet?” There was a noncommittal mumble. The second security guard repeated the question, louder, and everyone shook their heads. “We’re locking down campus until we find him,” the guard said, his voice stern. Somehow Thomas began to feel personally responsible for not stopping Newt, not going after him. “I’d expect you all to know how dangerous it is out here. If anyone sees him — ” The hiss of a radio on the man’s belt interrupted him. He turned away and lifted it to his mouth. “This is Weston, Glade Hall. Go ahead.”

Thomas could just barely hear the responding voice, crackling over the fuzzy line. “Student driver called in on the police radios. Could it be your kid?”

The security guard’s brow cleared. “Must be. Where’s he headed?”

“Nowhere. Rear-ended a truck. Medical’s on their way.”

Thomas felt Minho stumble slightly and grabbed his shoulder to steady him. Behind the security guard, something flashed bright against the snow; red and blue lights, beams in the white of the blizzard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it hasn't become clear yet, I know diddly squat about boarding schools, and I'd apologize, but since I'm just using it as a premise for the characters and relationships we all came here in the first place to read and write about, I'm hoping that you don't care either. But it would be chill if you wanna leave me comments about the inaccuracies because I'm kind of curious.


	5. Winter Break, or If You Haven't Resigned Yourself to Shitty Cliches Be Warned:  Shitty Cliches Ahead

Part of the reason Thomas insisted on going to the hospital with Minho was because he was genuinely afraid that his friend would get there and pulverize Newt. He hadn’t spoken a word after he’d told Thomas where he was going, not even to ask Thomas what he was doing when he buckled himself into the driver’s seat of Minho’s car. Neither of them were entirely sure if they’d be punished for leaving campus. Neither cared.

A lie about being family (“Adopted,” Minho told the nurse tersely), got them into the hospital’s waiting room. The staff had warned them that if the doctors were working on Newt, it would be a long wait. Thomas settled back and prepared himself for the ordeal of hard plastic chairs and worst-case scenarios chasing themselves around his head, but their names were called after only a few minutes.

“Newt,” Minho said in a peculiar half-snarl when they got in the room, the first thing he’d said in an hour.

The blonde boy was sitting upright on an exam table, forced dignity in his face, but under it he had the guilty look of someone who knows he’s in for a talk. “Listen — ”

“No.” Minho shook his head. “You had no right to walk out like that.”

“You’re okay?” Thomas checked, feeling that someone had to do so.

“Yeah, just a bruise from the seatbelt. I can leave once the paperwork goes through.” Newt turned to Minho. “I just needed to get away for a bit. I don’t think I can be blamed for needing some bloody air.”

“Yeah, sure, needing air. You know what I thought must have happened? You know what I was scared of?”

Newt averted his eyes, and Thomas got the sense that he was missing something important in the conversation. “Minho — ”

“Fuck you. Don’t pretend. Don’t try to pass it off as some bullshit that only affects you, that I shouldn’t have been worried, that there’s no reason I should have felt guilty — ”

Newt rallied and cut him off. “This isn’t the time.” He turned to Thomas. “How did you guys get here?”

“A lot of lying,” Thomas said. “I think it’s safe to say we’re all going to get a talking to when we get back.” Seeing his friend’s face fall, he quickly added, “But don’t worry about that, they’ll go easy on you if you’re recovering, and they’d have to be pretty inhumane to fault us for wanting to visit you.”

“Still, you shouldn’t have risked it.” He slid off the table, wincing. “Let’s wait out front.” His eyes slid over Minho as he passed him; the bigger boy had shut down like Newt had found an off switch. His mouth was a rigid line, and arms were crossed, feet planted. For a minute Thomas was sure he’d remain behind, glaring at the examining room wall forever, but then he moved and followed them silently out.

“Is the truck’s owner pressing charges?” Thomas asked, anxious to break the furious silence between the two.

Newt shook his head. “There weren’t any damages to either car, which is lucky with the road so bad. We both slid off onto the shoulder, got a little whiplash, but the guy in the other car was fine with just writing up the incident and being on his way. He was traveling cross-country, I guess, and trying to get home in time for work the next day.” The details were irrelevant at present, but Newt seemed most comfortable trying to keep his mind off of Minho’s passive aggressiveness. 

“That’s good,” Thomas said, unable to think of a way to keep the conversation going. They milled around in the waiting room, thumbing through magazines and pretending to be absorbed by the Disney movie playing inaudibly on a screen mounted in the corner of the room. Minho stood in silence, staring straight ahead, except for a few moments when Thomas caught his eyes following Newt’s back.

 

——

 

The trio was suspended for a day of school and campus-bound for the rest of the year. The principal who dealt with their misdemeanor sternly informed them that their parents would be notified. Thomas almost laughed; so there were perks to being parentless, after all. They’d have to be lucky if his mother even knew what they were saying when they told her about her son breaking school rules.

“It isn’t fair,” Minho ranted to Thomas as they settled into their beds that night. “We didn’t do anything wrong. All they said was that we couldn’t leave campus during the night, and it was morning. We weren’t skipping class or anything.”

“I know,” Thomas empathized. “They just have to be hard on us so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

“My dad’s going to freak,” Minho muttered. “He’ll come storming down here, breathing fire, and drag me home.” He sighed and laid back.

“At least Newt’s okay,” Thomas ventured. Minho snorted, but didn’t say anything. Thomas pressed his luck. “You remember back in the hospital, when you were talking to him? What did you mean?”

“What?” Minho asked, stalling.

“When you said you felt guilty.”

There was a beat of silence. “If he’d died, you know, the last thing we would have done was argue.” Thomas contemplated this; it made sense, but somehow it didn’t seem to be the piece of the puzzle that he was looking for.

“Are his parents going to be angry with him?” Thomas asked.

Minho shook his head. “His parents wouldn’t care if he robbed a bank. Come to think of it, if he’d actually died, I don’t think it would have made a difference to them.” He sighed. “Never thought I’d be jealous of that. One thing’s for sure, I am not going home over break. I’d rather not spend Christmas grounded.” His words cheered Thomas up slightly. As he didn’t have much of a home to go back to, Thomas had known from the outset that he’d be spending break at the school, and having a friend with him would certainly make the time pass faster.

The last few days before break were constantly stressful for Thomas, who felt like he was trying to bridge a gap between his two friends and was only succeeding in being stretched to the breaking point. Frequently, after classes the three of them had together, he’d find himself walking out of the room out of breath, as though keeping the peace was as physically exhausting as running a marathon. He was sure that the two would come to blows during their final English period the Friday before break; Minho bumped Newt on his way out of the classroom, and Thomas swore he saw Newt’s hand twitch like he wanted to grab Minho’s arm. But the moment passed, and a few minutes later, Newt was jabbering away to Thomas contentedly, excited to get away from the school for a couple weeks. Thomas followed him to his dorm room and watched him pack, and then, a bag slung over each shoulder, Newt gave him a few parting words. “See you next semester, then.” He paused. “Keep an eye on Minho, won’t you?” Thomas promised he would, and Newt punched him on the shoulder. “You’re a good one, Tommy. Glad I met you.” He waved cheerily and pushed out of the doors towards the parking lot.

Thomas trailed back to his dorm, the sleepy satisfaction of the start of break settling over him. When he entered the room, Minho was stepping away from the window, and Thomas knew he’d been following Newt’s progress across the grounds.

“Break, huh?” Minho said, covering the moment. “Just me and you.”

“God, I already want to be back in class,” Thomas said teasingly, flopping down on his bed. Minho dropped down, cross-legged, beside him.

“Christmas should be cool, anyway. The school sponsors a field trip to some winter park on Christmas Eve, and on New Years everyone goes down to see the fireworks at the mall.”

Thomas considered this. “What do they do on Christmas day?”

Minho shrugged. “Some lame school dinner. It’s a visitation day for anyone who didn’t go home over break but still want to see their family.”

“Awesome, so we’ve got three days out of fourteen planned.” Thomas was perfectly content to spend the other eleven days lying around eating, but he figured someone as active as Minho would have at least a few ideas in the works for how they’d spend their time. Sure enough, the next day, Minho invited Thomas to hang out at another dorm with Ben, promising that a few girls were going to sneak over from the other school. Thomas immediately thought of Teresa, who’d never responded to his text on the snow day, but he doubted she’d be at the party, as addicted to rule-following as she was. So that night, right before curfew, they walked across campus to the Scorch Dorm, self-named for its air conditioning’s legendary instability. In structure, it was the same as Glade Hall, but inside was a common room filled with beanbags and end tables with lamps that were in various degrees of overuse.

“Minho,” Ben shouted in greeting, already reclining in one of the beanbags. He’d complained at length about having to stay at the school over break, and as the only other Glader besides them, he jumped at any opportunity to get out of the dorm.

“Hey, man,” Minho said, coming to stand beside him. “What kind of party is this, a study group?”

“Oh, the kitchen’s way less tame,” Ben assured him. He got up, gesturing for them to follow him, and the three of them exited the common room and headed down a hallway, the volume increasing with each step. Dorm kitchens were nothing more fancy than a pair of fridges for students to keep food in and a long-suffering microwave that no one ever cleaned, but the members of Scorch had honored it with the heart of their celebration. People packed the room from wall to wall, and at least two different sources of music competed for attention. Everyone seemed to have a drink in their hand, and the rowdiness of the crowd hinted that the cooler by the microwave had more in it than an innocent punch. Ben navigated the group with practiced ease, dodging flailing cups, while Minho chose the less subtle method of shouldering through the group, and Thomas used his wake as a clear path. They were both bestowed red solo cups filled with a purple juice whose bitter taste confirmed Thomas’s suspicions; he sipped it, wincing at the burn in his throat, but enjoying the warmth that shot through his bloodstream.

“Oops, s’cuse me,” someone said, trodding on Thomas’s toes on her way back to the cooler for what must have been her third or fourth drink. The ratio of girls to boys seemed off-kilter; each of the girls had at least three or four boys jockeying for her attention. Apparently, no one foresaw this mismatch as a potential problem when someone had the idea to play seven minutes in heaven and the suggestion was taken up with feverish excitement — the remote chance to get lucky with one of the women was well worth risking a few awkward minutes with a peer.

The efficiency with which the group counted heads and produced straws was impressive, and left no chance for Thomas to bow out of the first round. The assembled fifty or so students stood in a ragged ring around the commons, where they’d migrated to provide room for the game and easy access to the cleaning closet, and a tipsy older student came around the circle, a forest of straws in hand. Thomas watched the boy approach him, and figured one in twenty-five odds weren’t too bad — surely he’d be passed over. But as each student drew long straw after long straw, the tension rose and the crowd began to hold their breath between each pull. The handful of straws shrank and neared where Thomas stood. The boy reached Minho first. Unconcerned, Minho picked a straw and jerked it free.

The room erupted with cheering and hoots; the first short straw had been unearthed. Minho good-humoredly tried to put it back before rolling his eyes and accepting his fate. The straws moved on to Ben, who pulled a long one. It seemed then to hit most of the students that it was statistically unlikely that Minho would find himself in a closet with someone of the opposite gender, and laughter started to crop up as a few male students pretended to scoot away from each other.

The boy offered the straws to Thomas. There were only ten or so left. His hand hovered over them, trying to find a way to pick logically, but finally his fingers brushed one at random and he seized it and pulled.

If the crowd had been loud before, it was nothing compared to the clamor as Thomas faced the second short straw. At least a dozen jokes made their circuits around the room in the thirty seconds that followed, and countless hands shoved Minho and Thomas forward. Minho was bravely trying to be a good sport, but Thomas was sure his face was beet red. The momentum of the people around them shoved them forward. Weak protesting did Thomas no good, and he found his knees knocking against Minho’s as they struggled to find a place to put their feet amongst the cleaning supplies.

“Five… four… three,” the crowd chanted, several cell phone’s timers at the ready to start tracking the seven minutes. “Two… one!” The door slammed shut, submersing them in darkness.

“Stupid party,” Minho said after a second.

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. “Not sure what they thought would happen.” He shifted, trying to get his legs under him, and kneed Minho. “Sorry.” A bottle of Windex fell, hitting Thomas in the foot and making a thumping noise. He heard muffled applause and sighed.

They had no idea how much of the time had passed. Even one minute seemed to take forever in the cramped space, their breath loud in the silence, their heartbeats inches from each other. It must have been two or three minutes in that Thomas felt some kind of shift in the way they weren’t looking at each other. It felt less like two friends impatiently waiting out a childish game, and more like — something Thomas couldn’t name. His pulse reacted to the discomfort, and he felt sweat beading on the back of his neck. He suddenly desperately wanted out of the closet.

The silence stretched on. Thomas counted down in his head, trying to estimate how long they had left, but Minho shifted and the movement scattered Thomas’s thoughts. They were as far from each other as they could get, but that amounted to a scant few inches.

The tension made Thomas count fast, but he could swear they were supposed to be out of the closet by now. He cleared his throat, desperate to say something to break the silence, and looked at Minho’s shadowed face for the first time since they’d been locked in. “Must be nearly time now,” he said. His voice sounded funny. Another second of silence passed, and then, involuntarily, impulsively, Thomas kissed him.

It was easy, natural. They were only a breath away from one another, and the puppet strings that seemed to be controlling Thomas’s movements made the move a knee-jerk reaction. Of course Thomas kissed him. He’d been wanting to since day one, he just hadn’t known it yet.

Minho pushed Thomas, but not away. Thomas’s back hit the wall, and he laughed, nervously, before Minho’s lips met his again. The moment, jumbled, confused, was over almost before it began. Minho broke away, and Thomas stumbled in the absence of his supporting hands. He’d just regained his balance when the closet door flew open.

“How’d it go, lovebirds?” Ben’s sing-song voice asked. Disappointment, of all things, rose in Thomas’s chest. He found himself wishing the door was still closed.

“You’re all idiots,” Minho said, casual enough that Thomas almost wondered if he’d hallucinated the last ten seconds. But then he saw Minho adjust his hair anxiously as Ben turned away, and the momentousness of what had happened sank in. He stumbled away from the closet, found his drink where he’d left it, and downed it in one gulp.

It took hours of hazy drunkenness for Thomas to work through the shock of what had happened. He was unable to reproach himself for replaying the moment over and over, because it warmed him as much as the alcohol did, the two guilty pleasures that made his evening a confusing mix of dream and nightmare. He would see Minho across the room and go red, lose his train of thought, or they’d make eye contact and drop it immediately, forgetting midsentence whatever conversations they were involved in.

By two AM, the party was clearing out. The girls had long since snuck back, fearing being caught so far past curfew, and most of the boys from the other dormitories had left as well. The Scorch students had quieted down to a few drunk groups of friends giggling in corners. Ben was passed out, snoring on a bean bag. Thomas had just finished an oddly in-depth discussion of his tea preferences with a woozy freshman when he felt a hand on his arm.

“We need to talk,” Minho said, releasing him quickly. “Let’s get back.”

Thomas trailed behind him across the grounds, so apprehensive about the quiet, brooding boy in front of him that he forgot to be worried about their rule breaking. His stomach churned, again a mix of the alcohol and the effect Minho was having on him. They made it safely back to Glade Hall, crept across the darkened commons and up the stairs. Thomas dreaded having to spend the night in the same room as Minho after the talk they were about to have. He pictured the armchairs in the commons in his mind’s eye and contemplated how uncomfortable it would be to sleep on one. Maybe tomorrow he’d go down to the student housing center and ask for a roommate swap — who knows, maybe he’d wind up with his own room, that wouldn’t be too bad. Something in him ached at the thought.

Minho unlocked their door, and they walked in. “Close it behind you,” Minho directed.

Thomas turned and slowly pressed the door shut. “Minho…” What was he supposed to say? Sorry I kissed you? That wouldn’t be honest. He took a second to think before he turned around. “I — ”

“Shut up,” Minho urged, his face inches from Thomas’s, brown eyes searching blue. They picked up right where they’d left off in the closet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, damn, I feel like I should keep a tally of the cliches I'm employing here. Snowed in? Check. Car crash? Check. Awkward, conveniently timed party game forces the sexual tension to a climax? Check. That's three so far, stay tuned for even more.
> 
> I have another chapter in the works, it'll be ready to post if I actually sit down and finish it and if anyone's interested in it.


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